Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Missing Joseph (Inspector Lynley, Bk 6)

Missing Joseph (Inspector Lynley, Bk 6)


Deborah and Simon St James go on a short winter holiday to try to salvage their battered marriage. Deborah has had six miscarriages and has been told to not even try to get pregnant for a year in order for her body to heal. She desperately wants to have a child, HER child as she thinks of it. Simon, on the other hand, is happy to consider adoption, but she refuses to think about it. They decide to go on holiday to a remote town in Lancashire where Robin Sage is the local priest. Deborah had met him at an art gallery when she came in out of the rain. She finds herself drawn to him and his kindness. However, when they get there they discover that he has died. The verdict is an accident, but they involve him eating dinner at the home of a woman who works as a caretaker at an estate. She fed him hemlock instead of wild parsnips, a mistake. But was it? Lynley and Havers are both on vacation. Havers is trying to get her mother's house ready to sell while Lynley was supposed to go to Corfu with Helen, but they had a falling in. Their relationship is a prickly one. He loves her and wants to marry her. She loves him but is unsure of what she wants. So when St James calls Lynley for help on his own time he accepts gratefully. Soon he becomes totally engrossed in the case and things begin to come together. George is such an outstanding writer. Her books are both absorbing and thoughtful. This has to be one of the best in the series in my opinion, but there hasn't been one I haven't enjoyed.